


Where There Is Ruin...

by tirsynni



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fantastic Racism, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Other, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-10-09 02:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17398187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: Loki-focused Whumptober ficlets. Abandon hope all ye enter here.





	1. Stabbed

The blade scraped against his ribs before thudding to a stop at an odd angle in his collarbone. Hands empty and open at his sides, green light dispersing uselessly into the air, Loki stared at the hilt jutting from his chest. It resembled a strange, morbid brooch. Even as he stared, bewildered, blood blossomed on his tunic.

Apparently a decade of fighting could not stop a millennia of protecting Thor from his own stupidity. Good to know.

Loki wobbled, pain flaring at last, but like someone had punched him, not like someone buried metal in his body. Large hands clutching his shoulders eased him to the ground. Feeling more confused than alarmed, Loki allowed it. He stared at the blue sky and watched it shift into grey, lightning cutting through the blur. Then Thor’s face blocked the view, flushed and teary.

At least Thor remained the same: always an idiot.

Thor was talking but Loki ignored him. He inhaled and his chest ached like it was his first breath since getting stabbed.

Stabbed. Defending Thor. How the All-Father must be  _ laughing _ \--

Oh. Inhaling shifted the blade, scraping metal against bone. Loki froze, and Thor’s voice rose, frantic and useless. Breathing shallowly, Loki wished he had breath enough to curse the oaf. Tears shone in Thor’s blue eyes, like  _ he _ had been the one stabbed, and damn him because that hurt, too. He had no  _ right _ .

“Take it out,” Loki hissed. Beneath his skin, his magic burned, fighting to heal a wound which refused to heal. How appropriate for his fool self: fighting against Thor for years but still throwing himself in the way when someone else almost succeeded.

It would have hit the idiot’s heart. Thor hadn’t even noticed.

It  _ hurt _ , but not enough to warrant the tears still streaming down Thor’s cheeks. Loki almost wanted to tell him about Thanos, about his  _ Sanctuary _ , how a mere knife didn’t count as  _ pain _ , but then Thor was moving, one hand flat against Loki’s chest and another on the hilt. He moved with care but still jostled the knife, jarring broken bone. Loki hissed through clenched teeth, but he had worse: bones broken again and again until his magic was worn, skin shredded until his magic stopped healing the scars.

An agony Thor and Asgard  _ left him to _ , but it was hard remembering that.

Thor’s whispered apologies scored sharper than the knife, and when he yanked it out, Loki only hissed again. More blood poured and Thor pressed his hands against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

Except it was too late for that. The bleeding would never, ever stop, and today proved that, all of his rage and hatred forsaken in a movement Loki didn’t even remember making.

“It will be all right, Brother,” Thor soothed, every word like getting stabbed again. “Everything will be all right.”

Loki’s fury gave him the strength to call on his magic, to whisk himself away. The fool shouted after him, as he always did, and the echoes followed him. As they always did.

No knife, not even if it had been wielded by Thanos himself, could hurt as much as that one small, stupid action: being Thor’s shield, protecting him from behind, taking the wound for him.

Being Thor’s shadow. Always.


	2. Bloody Hands

“-oki! Loki!”

Loki’s first thought was that he knew that voice. His second thought was that everything  _ hurt _ . A spar with Thor? The oaf always got carried away.

“Loki, can you hear me? Loki!”

That wasn’t Thor’s voice. Where was Thor? Where was his brother? If Thor hurt him, then his brother wouldn’t leave his side, apologizing until he was hoarse.

Wait. No. Not anymore.

The thought lingered but refused to clarify itself. Loki frowned and raised a hand to his aching head. At the touch, pain spiked in his skull. Forcing his eyes open, Loki stared at his hand. Blood dripped from his fingers.

Oh. That explained a bit. But where was Thor?

“Loki? Can you hear me?”

Pain crept down his skull and down his neck. Now Loki recognized the hot, wet sensation on his face. Sharp pain in his chest: cracked, possibly broken ribs. Dull throbbing in his stomach and legs but nothing alarming. Probably concussion, and he frowned at his fingers. His magic simmered under his skin, healing him but sluggishly.

Assessment done, Loki looked beyond his bloody hand. His eyes refused to focus, everything fuzzy and dark. Yet he made out blond hair and worried blue eyes.

“S’or?” Loki slurred. Surely Thor would be close. Thor wouldn’t leave him alone when he was hurt.

Except that didn’t sound right. Why?

The man frowned and slowly his face came into focus. No. No Thor. Familiar but not his brother.

“Loki?” the man repeated.

Loki blinked, blood clinging to his eyelashes. Everything throbbed, even his magic feeling bruised.

_ Thor? _ Loki almost asked again, but no. Steve Rogers, Loki remembered, the man’s bruised, dirty face at last clear. Captain America. Member of the Avengers.

Like Thor.

Enemies of Loki.

No, Thor wouldn’t be at his side, and he was  _ glad _ about that. No Thor to mock his weakness, to tower over him, to stand strong while Loki was again broken on the ground.

But why was Captain America there?

Loki scowled and tried to push himself up. Rogers’s eyes widened. “Wait --” he started, even as Loki’s arms gave out. He hit the ground with a thump.

Ooooh, that hurt.

“Stay still,” Rogers urged. “You’re hurt.”

_ And why do you care? _ Loki glared at the Avenger when Rogers reached for him. Rogers froze, hand still extended. Why was the man there with him? Where were they?

Slowly, Rogers leaned back onto his heels, hand falling to his side. The light was low, but it was bright enough for Loki’s sharp eyes to make out the dirt smeared on the man’s concerned face. A burn marred his shoulder, blackening the uniform and searing the flesh. A  _ magical _ burn.

Not his magic. Amora’s.

Memory returned, as quick and painful as Thor’s lightning. Loki groaned and let his gaze roll away from Rogers’s worried face to the single dying lightbulb hanging in the corner of the room. Luck was on their side for that much, at least. The rest of the room was in shambles, nothing but shattered stone and wood. From the look of their bodies and Rogers’s hands, the man had dug them both out of the rubble.

No sign of escape. At least, not without magic. Loki let his head fall back, ignoring the sharp spike of pain, and stared at the dark ceiling.

“I think you saved Thor’s life, you know,” Rogers continued after a moment. “And mine.”

Loki didn’t bother opening his eyes. All he needed Rogers to say was --

“Maybe you’re not so bad after all.”

Loki groaned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Loki and fic info on my [tumblr](http://tirsynni.tumblr.com/). :)


	3. Insomnia

There were Frost Giants beneath his bed. Loki knew it.

A bed fit for a prince during the day, it seemed too large and empty at night. Loki huddled by the headboard and clutched his pillow. The bed was also large enough to fit monsters under it.

Monsters who loved to feast on the flesh of children, Thor had told him with open relish. With massive paws big enough to swamp his foot if he was foolish enough to step off the bed, strong enough to yank him under.

Loki dreamed of them: their blood-red eyes, their ice-blue skin. In his dreams, they lumbered past him, massive giants whose steps shook the earth. In his dreams, something wailed and wailed, choking and exhausted, and the monsters just trekked on. Blood and smoke filled the air.

The monsters lived still, Thor told him before the nurse took Loki to bed. On Jotunheim, but they liked to travel to the other realms, seeking warm-blooded children. Small and tender, just like Loki.

Loki wrapped his blankets tighter around him but it didn’t help: the cold seeped into blood and bone. The Frost Giants lived in ice and snow, Thor said. Their very touch was cold enough to burn their victims.

Shivering, Loki looked at the edge of the bed. Dark and still but Loki knew better. Hungry, Thor told him. Always hungry, and Loki believed him. He dreamed of their bloody eyes night after night, and he woke up screaming, echoing that haunting wail. Mother scolded Thor and told him to stop telling tales but Loki always asked for more: he had to know.

Was the room colder than usual? Loki bit his lip and hugged his legs. Frost under the bed, its chill expanding, and son the room would be buried under ice. Loki’s room, his world, would soon be nothing but ice, and he would be alone: just him and the monsters.

Loki swallowed a whimper and stared at the door on the far side of the room. He was fast: Mother said so. Surely he could reach the door before the Frost Giants could get out from under the bed. He could run down the hall to Thor’s room --

_ “But we Sons of Odin are not fearful of mere Frost Giants, are we, Brother?” Thor asked as the nurse led Loki away, winking at Loki. _

Loki squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head. For the rest of the night, he sat alone on the bed, listening for the monsters’ breathing.


	4. "No, stop!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied non-con in this chapter. Based on the Sleipnir myth.

_ “No, stop!” _

Afterwards, the Allfather told Asgard of the great gift Loki had given him, created by his clever magicks and power worthy of a Prince of Asgard. The people cheered. Later, Frigga sat beside him on his bed, holding his hands, and told him that a celebratory dinner was necessary, was  _ expected _ , for such a feat by a prince.

God of Lies, the people called him, and again and again he earned his title: at the dinner, with Frigga, every time he saw Odin with his  _ gift _ …

Later, the hatred became so embedded in him that Loki was never sure where it started, when it took seed, but he always suspected it was  _ then _ .

Odin swore Thor to secrecy, unable to tell even the fools he called his friends. With clear reluctance, he agreed. If he understood, his frustration to not share this great  _ joke _ overwhelmed it. Instead, his teasing about Loki’s magic and cowardly fighting style grew. He never called Loki  _ ergi _ , would challenge anyone to a fight to the death if he overheard them call his little brother that, but Thor never realized that he didn’t have to say the word. Loki heard it in every laugh, saw it in the twinkle in Thor’s eyes.

No one congratulated him for his role in stopping the builder from completing the wall. Thor received all the acclaim for smashing the man’s head when it was learned he was a Frost Giant. A shapeshifter pretending to be an Aesir, and Thor laughed over the cowardice and trickery of the Frost Giants over many a pint of mead.  _ Trust the Frost Giants to use such magics!  _ he exclaimed and never noticed Loki’s flinch.

No, no acclaim came to Loki for his cleverness in stopping the wall from being built. Most didn’t realize he played a role at all, and almost everyone who knew forgot. All they knew was that the builder’s horse never returned, and was that not a gift of the Norns?

No one noticed that Loki vanished. No one noticed he was gone for months. What were mere months to the Aesir, after all?

_ No, stop! _ Loki wailed when Svaðilfari reached him, but it only came out as a frantic neigh.

_ No, stop! _ Loki thought as Odin Allfather led away Sleipnir, talking about how one day he would make a fine steed for a king.

_ No, stop! _ as Odin led away his  _ son _ , the child he had carried inside of him for months.

“It is for the best,” Frigga soothed, even as a seed of a different type planted itself in Loki, foul and furious and poisonous.

_ No, stop! _ as Thor laughed at  _ his son _ carrying Odin Allfather, and the seed inside him grew.


	5. Poison

He was a fool. For once, the God of Lies told the truth: he was a fool. 

Loki took a blade for Thor, sacrificed himself for Thor, fought one of the God-killers of lore for Thor, and where did that leave him?

On a forsaken rock, one wiped of all life by one of  _ Thor’s _ ancestors, bleeding and shaking and feeling that monster’s blood burn through him like poison.

Did it qualify as poison? Loki’s head rolled in the dirt as he stared sightlessly at the barren sky. What qualified...what qualified as…

He couldn’t think. Groaning, he clawed at his chest and felt claws --  _ claws  _ \-- scrape at his flesh. Black claws to go with grey-blue skin, even as his veins pulsed darkly under his obscene flesh. Not the bright blue of the Frost Giants, not the pallor of the Aesir. Something twisted by hovering death and that damned burning alien blood.

He should be dead should be dead should be dead, final words sweet and true and dramatic, but no. The Norns mocked him again.

Loki wheezed a laugh. He thought he could even taste that wretched poison, sharp on the back of his tongue. He wasn’t supposed to wake up. It was supposed to be a  _ fine _ death. Instead, painpain _ pain _ and knowing his  _ brother _ left his body to rot on this damned realm. He would tell Father  _ indeed _ . The bastard probably forgot Loki as soon as he was out of sight. Thor didn’t even check to see if he was  _ truly dead _ before leaving him to play hero.

Thor, always playing hero to everyone but Loki.

Loki’s laughter spiraled in the dead air, broken and wild, even as his chest pulsed with agony. With every beat of his damaged heart, more poison pulsed to the far tips of his body. He couldn’t feel his fingers or toes anymore.

Was Heimdall watching even now? Gloating in the show? Or was Loki, fallen and dying, beneath his notice now?

Was Odin watching from his throne? Was he laughing?

Loki snarled and dug those damned claws into his chest, where the blackened wound still bled. No.  _ No _ . He refused to die here. He knew Thor: Thor wouldn’t tell Odin a damned thing. And Odin? Odin wouldn’t give a damn. Birthright to die at birth, was that not what he said? Dearest  _ Father _ , the bastard who wouldn’t even let Loki say good-bye to Frigga before she joined the stars?

_ No. _ Growling, Loki focused on the endless night before him and the magic rich in his blood. He would survive, and he would make Odin  _ pay _ . 

However strong the poison in his veins, it couldn’t compare to the poison in his heart.


	6. Betrayed

Bare inch by inch, the accursed wire pulled free. Pulled delicately through torn flesh, blood dripping down his throat and down his chin. He felt it cake his face. He couldn’t bring himself to look into a mirror, even though he knew it would help.

Instead, pained breath by pained breath, inch by inch, Loki pulled the wire stitching his mouth shut.

It hurt, but the feel of long-gone hands on his shoulders hurt more. They pressure of eyes watching even as their owners did  _ nothing _ .

His  _ family _ did nothing.

Except no. Loki shuddered, and he felt the fine vibration of the wire inside his skin. Blood coated his teeth.  _ Odin _ did nothing. Thor held him down and breathed taunts in his ear about how he wasn’t so clever  _ this _ time, now was he?

Frigga… Mother. How could she just watch? Why didn’t she stop it?

But her face had been like stone as that damned dwarf sew his mouth shut. Like stone as Odin gave his permission. Permission for some _lowly,_ _filthy_ dwarf to…

A little more and his mouth would be free. Just a little more.

Done before the entire court, where everyone could see. To see his humiliation and to see his  _ place _ . Because that was what it was, wasn’t it? Odin ( _ Frigga _ ) would never allow such dishonor to happen to their precious, golden Thor, but to Loki? 

Loki had known, had known for so long, but he never expected it to be proven so publicly, so ruthlessly. Without magic, his mouth would scar for years, perhaps longer, and some part of Loki was tempted to let the marks remain. Would Thor still laugh, seeing those scars,  _ the scars he helped put there? _

Was Thor even looking for him? Were any of them? To point and laugh as he pulled the wire from his mouth? Did Thor search for him in his rooms or in Eir’s tender care? But no: Loki would not permit it. Instead, he hid in a little nook between the Realms, beyond Heimdall’s accursed Sight. In a little spot filled with banned magical books and items and now the scent of his blood.

Thor. Odin. Frigga. All of them. His supposed family.  _ Watching _ as that damned dwarf put that damned needle to his mouth.

No. He would finish pulling the wire and then he would heal the wounds. He would return and smile and laugh and play it off like a prank gone wrong. But Loki would never forget. Loki would never forgive.

The wire came free and fell to the floor with a wet splat and metallic  _ ting _ . Blood splashed outward.

Loki would never forget, and he would make Thor and Odin

_ (and Frigga?) _

bleed as he bled today.

And he tried ( _ tried and tried and tried _ ) not to think about what his supposed family would have done if the dwarf had demanded to cut off his head, instead.


	7. Kidnapped

_ “Your birthright was to die!” _

Sprawled on his back on his humble bed, Loki threw his cup up in the air, caught it, and threw it again. Over and over, like the words replaying in his head.

_ “No, Loki.” _

Up and down. Up and down.

Down down down.

Falling forever.

Up again. Down again.

_ “Your birthright was to die!” _

Up again with the cup, Loki’s face impassive as he watched it fall back down again.

Frigga came sometimes, in illusion form only. She seemed proud of herself at first for finding a loophole in Odin’s orders, but Loki couldn’t stop looking at her and wondering if she thought the same. If she, too, thought his birthright had been to die, a runt of a prince abandoned by his monstrous people. Did she look at Loki and see an Asgardian prince or was he always a Jotun cuckoo in their golden nest?

How foolish he had been. How naive.

The guards didn’t look at him at all. That was their solution. They provided him food and necessities but otherwise pretended that there was no prisoner in this cell. They never looked at him like royalty, fallen or no. They acted like he was a  _ thing _ , meant to be hidden. A thing taken from its Realm, only to be discarded as useless.

Up and down. Up and down. Down down down…

He always knew he was  _ different _ . Yet Loki dared to call Asgard home. Wasn’t that what they told him, even as they shoved him further and further into the shadows to let the  _ real _ prince shine?

Down and clenched in his fist. Loki stared at the ceiling of his prison and breathed.

His  _ new _ prison, anyway. 

He forced himself to toss the cup upward again. He knew the truth. A  _ real _ Asgardian prince wouldn’t have been told “No” and tossed into the abyss. A  _ real _ Asgardian prince wouldn’t have discarded and left in  _ his _ hands. No. Odin tried to frame it so he saved Loki ( _ “birthright is death” _ ) but Loki knew better. Odin took Loki for a reason, and then discarded him when he was no longer useful. Kidnapped a little Jotun toy and who cared if he broke him? 

Loki knew the truth now.

Up and down, up and down.

Now, in Odin’s cells, Loki would heal from what  _ he _ wrought, and he would get his revenge. 

“Loki? Love, I was told you didn’t eat your lunch.”

Loki caught the cup and held it in a deliberately light grip. He turned his head enough to see Frigga -- at least, an illusion of her -- standing beside his ignored tray of food. She frowned at him, worry darkening her eyes, and Loki’s heart ached.

If Odin was a kidnapper, what did that make her?

Loki knew the answer, he  _ knew _ it, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice it. That felt like the first step down a treacherous path, leading to a ledge and an endless nothing below.

Down down down…

Loki forced a smile and made himself rise. He faced Frigga ( _ queenmotherkidnapper _ ) and pretended he couldn’t feel the Void beneath his feet.


	8. Fever

Who knew Frost Giants could burn?

Even as Loki shivered ( _ a Frost Giant shivering, wasn’t that so funny? _ ) he forced himself to hold his illusion. If the pathetic mortal agency or its budding team ( _ or Thor _ ) looked in on him, he would look perfectly composed and not like the sickly wretch he was.

He should have healed from their...ministrations...by now, but his magic remained dull and shaky inside of him. This illusion, mere child’s play, wore at his endurance. Loki wasn’t sure what was funnier, truly: sending him to this Realm in this state ( _ don’t think about it don’t think about it _ ) or how these fools didn’t realize how quickly all of this would be over if he was at his best.

No. No. He wasn’t going to think about any of it. He simply needed to focus on his illusion and focus on his plan.

Not think about how he expected to see Thor by now. He knew SHIELD would send either the Spider or another agent who excelled at gaining information, but he thought Thor, who greeted him with the title  _ Brother _ , would have at least tried to see him.

But no. No Thor. Only this damned glass cage and the fever slowly burning him from the inside out.

_ They _ used heat before sending him to this Realm. To ensure his cooperation or some pretty lie to hide their sadism. It reminded Loki far too much of growing up in Asgard and wondering why he always grew sick in the summers as a child and Thor never did. How funny, in hindsight. How funny. So funny, he didn’t know how Odin didn’t laugh in his face every time he wondered aloud to him.

His illusion remained tall, cocky,  _ proud _ in a way Loki couldn’t pull off now. Knowing no one would see him, Loki wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. If Thor came now and just  _ asked _ him, he would break. He knew he would. He wanted his big brother, who held him during his fevers as a child and whispered stories about dragons and trolls and about how one day they would travel together to fight them. He was  _ so hot _ and his very muscles and bones ached, veins burning with liquid heat. He wanted to go home, to escape this madness, curl up with Thor and listen to his stories and let Mother pet his hair.

But no. Thor didn’t come. The Spider came instead. A reminder about why he had to do this, why he had to follow through.

Loki pushed through the pain, through the fever, and made his illusion smile.

Time to get to work.


	9. Stranded

Loki never expected to land.

He let go expecting to fall through the Void forever...or, at least, until Death finally claimed him.

After too long in the Void, he realized Death scorned him just as Life did. He fell and fell through the nothing, There would be no ending. There was nothing but the Void. After a while, he wondered if anything existed but the Void, if all before had been the dreams of a twisted mind struggling for sanity. Nothing but darkness as far as he could see: no stars or lights or the shine of golden Asgard. Nothing.

Then he landed.

It _hurt_. Every inch of impact -- of _contact --_ _hurt_ like nothing in his shattered memory. It felt like he still fell, but now he pressed into solidity where before there was only airlessness and nothing and _everything_. Agony burned in nerve and bone, contact thrumming through him to the very core of him. Feeling thrummed alive in every static, screaming nerve.

It  _ hurt _ and Loki reveled in it, staring upwards but seeing nothing, hearing nothing, only  _ feeling _ .

Time passed. How long, Loki never knew. Sensation coalesced, and slowly Loki became aware that it wasn’t just his body hurting: it was limbs, hands, feet. A vague whole coming together to form  _ Loki _ , even if  _ Loki _ remained distant.

Other details came slowly, and he took them in, uncaring. No life around him. Nothing but endless rock, one piece among floating shattered stone amidst endless stars. Loki looked away from that horror to stare mindlessly at the stone. Grey, dead, faded, but still more than the oblivion from before. Hard under him, unyielding, different from the greedy yielding of the Void.

Hard along his aching spine, bloodied by his shredded skin. Loki looked around, hungry for more, but there was nothing but  _ rockrockrock _ . Another type of nothingness around him, but nothingness he could  _ touch _ , could  _ feel _ . It  _ hurt _ , but it was so glorious that Loki rested against the stone, crimson with his own blood, and stared at the rock.

As awareness of his body (of  _ Loki _ ) came to him, an awareness of the Void came to him which one could never have within the Void itself. Even more slowly came the awareness of life beyond the Void, sensation beyond reach.

_ People _ beyond reach.

He tried to remember, back bruised and bloody against the stone, but the Void left holes in his mind (in  _ him _ ) and even as he realized he needed to move, to investigate this rock, he found himself thinking and thinking of the Loki broken within the Void and how he found himself falling, how he found himself  _ landing _ , how he found himself alone.

Then the Chitauri came, and Loki realized he wasn’t alone.

Soon, he realized being stranded on that forsaken rock would have been better, and  _ feeling _ was no longer a good thing.


	10. Bruises

Thor captured him, muzzled him like a dog, was about to drag him before his friends to show off his defeat, and Thor apologized for his  _ bruises _ . Apologized for not being able to heal him and assured him that soon, they would be home, and the Lady Eir could see to his hurts.  _ Hurts _ , he said, staring at the bruises on Loki’s face as if he had any hint of the harm done to Loki. Apologized right before he dragged Loki back to Asgard to imprisonment or death. If not for the muzzle, reeking of Odin’s seidr, Loki would have bit him or spit in his earnest face. Home?  _ Home? _ Did the idiot have any wits about him at all?

If not for the chains binding Loki’s magic, he would have summoned a knife and slit Thor’s throat. Perhaps after that, his own. 

Except he had the chance to do both and didn’t. That thought distracted him almost as much as the monster’s marks on his body did. Bruises upon bruises upon bruises, building up on his aching body. Each layer told a tale, but Thor, the fool, had no clue. He never did. He had no idea that Loki could have killed him, should have, or that it didn’t matter: they were all probably going to die soon anyway.

Loki couldn’t bite or spit, but he could jerk away when Thor tried to touch a bruise by his eye. As if touching would  _ help _ . Thor dared to look hurt in response. Dared to look hurt even as he kept a tight grip on Loki, ready to drag him like so much refuse to meet his  _ friends _ . Another bruise forming on his arm. Another indignity, dragged chained and muzzled before Thor’s little team of mortals, gathered to watch Thor and Loki travel to Asgard. To bid Thor farewell and to make sure Loki was truly gone. To watch like  _ Odin _ watched, forever ago.

_ “No, Loki.” _

Through the muzzle, Loki scowled at Thor until the idiot looked away, shoulders slumping. Soon, Thor would grab him, roughly, carelessly, haul him close to transport them via Mjolnir, because Thor was only aware of bruises he could see. He would yank Loki to him, careless of battered ribs and sore bones, and then perhaps would touch Loki’s face again, fret over the visible marks there. All the while, the wounds from before his arrival on Midgard would go unseen.

Loki hated him for that.

Thor whispered about home again, about  _ Mother _ and  _ Father _ , and Loki knew the truth. Odin would care even less about his bruises than Thor, would either lock him up to hide his mistake or would order an execution. A cage or death. Forever, no matter where he went, a cage or death. Lady Eir would not see to his wounds. Neither would the Allmother. None would check and thus none would see the story painted on his skin and bones about the threat waiting to kill them all.

The bruises hurt and the pain exhausted him. Loki told himself that was why he had to look away from Thor’s face.


	11. Hypothermia

This was funny. Truly, the funniest trick ever played on the Trickster God. Without a doubt. Absolutely hilarious.

So hilarious that Loki had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming with laughter. Or simply just from screaming.

He huddled in bed, his lush blankets rough and useless against his frozen skin. The tips of his fingers were blue, and wasn’t that funny? Jotun blue, Jotunheim blue, ice blue. Loki couldn’t feel his fingers or toes anymore (and his toes were blue, too, Loki knew without looking -- Jotun blue). 

With each exhale, Loki expected to see his breath, but no. His suite, a hotel room sealed off from the rest of the hotel and forgotten through magic, came with its own temperature control, and Loki turned it all the way up upon his return. It did nothing. He imagined he could see the heat sizzling in the air, even as ice solidified in his chest. 

Dr. Doom, reacting to  _ something  _ in Loki’s last battle with the Avengers which he refused to clarify. He only cursed Loki and then he  _ cursed  _ him and now Loki was here, frozen and alone, ironically hiding in the Avengers’ own city and ironically freezing to death.

Well, surely not to death. Victor could not have been  _ that _ angry at whatever imagined slight (imagined slight and wasn’t that funny, too) to make this curse lethal. A type of punishment, cruel beyond probably even Victor’s understanding, but surely not lethal, no matter how it felt.

Loki shivered and ground his teeth together to keep them from chattering. A Jotun freezing to death, but he wasn’t in Jotun form. Perhaps if he…

No. No. Loki swallowed, throat dry and sore, and wrapped his blankets tighter around him. No, Victor didn’t mean to kill him, and even if he did, Loki’s magic was stronger than an angered Midgardian mage. He would recover, he would heal, and then he would make Victor pay. As if some mortal curse could kill Loki when Laufey failed and the Void failed and …

No.

Loki shuddered and stared at the air before him again, some part of him still waiting for his breath to fog. He expected to see ice dripping from his bookshelves, his water glass from earlier to be crackling and frozen. Nothing. Only him, freezing to death, just like he had been when Odin found him.

It  _ would _ be a fitting death: just withdraw his magic fighting Victor’s curse and yield. Die as he should have 

No. Not until he made them pay.  _ All of them _ pay.

_ Thor _ pay.

He thought of Thor coming upon him now, his false brother freezing in what should have been his birthright (along with death, and Odin would pay for that), tangled in his blankets like a child. Would Thor laugh? Even as Loki trembled, the cold seeping so deeply into him that his bones ached with it? Would Thor laugh and  _ watch? _

Or would Thor do as he did for centuries, when Loki’s mind was too loud and sleep escaped him, and curl up in the blankets with him?

_ “The monsters cannot reach you here, Brother. I have you.” _

Loki bowed his head and clenched his jaw and focused all of his will on fighting this curse. Tears seared at the corner of his eyes, and he refused to let them fall.

Did not want to see them turn into ice, too.


	12. Electrocution

It took Thanos and his minions little time to realize the most efficient weapons to use against Loki: electricity and ice. With ice, as weakened as he was from the Void and their...tender ministrations... his body reverted to its monstrous form against his will. His fingernails turned corpse-black, barbaric scars laced his already battered flesh, and blue swept over his skin, as if inviting Thanos’s minions to see what other colors they could call forth. There, in that forsaken place, Odin’s spells meant nothing.

Electricity? It presented a different type of torture. It crackled through his body, stripping him of control as his body convulsed on the hard ground. His head slammed into the stone, muscles shivering and quaking and feeling like they would tear away from bone. Sometimes he screamed and sometimes he couldn’t, choking and gagging as sobs broke in his throat like rocks under Thor’s hammer.

And that was it. That was why lightning hurt more than fire, more than water, more than blades. 

_ “Look what I can do, Brother! Look what I can do!” _

Thor, before even Mjolnir, lifting his hands to the sky, and in the silence of Thanos’s creatures watching and watching and  _ watching _ it was easy to think he was back in Asgard, hitting the ground as Thor showed them  _ exactly _ what he could do.

_ “I didn’t mean...I didn’t mean...Brother!” _

_ You never mean it, Thor _ , Loki thought, mind lost in fog as the final tremors shook his body.  _ You never care what you break.  _

But Thor never answered, and soon enough Loki remembered where he was: on the Titan’s Sanctuary, with Thor and Asgard a lifetime away.

Until the blades and flames were no longer fun, and the electricity would come out. Again and again.

_ “Look, Brother! Look!” _

Electricity flickering on hands and then electricity flickering on Mjolnir, each time lit by Thor’s joy.

_ “Look, Brother!” _

Lightning tearing through him, until his heart skipped in his chest and he couldn’t feel his hands or toes and each breath felt like a struggle.

_ “Look!” _

All of that flashed through Loki’s mind as Thor hovered over him on Sakaar, a smug grin on his face. 

_ Look, Brother, _ it said.

**Author's Note:**

> For more Loki and Thor fic and pretties, check me out on [tumblr](http://tirsynni.tumblr.com/)!


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